


Déjà Vu

by DeCarabas



Series: Fugitives Together [31]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Act 3, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-04-04 11:08:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4135221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeCarabas/pseuds/DeCarabas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During the events of The Last Straw, Hawke had the strangest sense of déjà vu.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Déjà Vu

Pieces of the chantry were falling out of the sky, and Anders wouldn’t look at him, and Hawke had the strangest sense of déjà vu.

* * *

Three years ago, Meredith stood over a qunari corpse in the streets of Hightown, just looking at Hawke. The Knight-Commander herself, watching him like she was trying to decide whether or not to eat him, and he could still feel the heat of the last fireball he’d thrown. She’d seen. She knew.

All he could think was, _Here we finally are_.

As if this was a moment that he’d always known was coming, no matter how hard he’d tried to deny it, to avoid it. He was always going to be caught sooner or later. Sooner or later the money wouldn’t be enough; sooner or later he’d catch the attention of someone who couldn’t be bribed; sooner or later he wouldn’t run fast enough. An inevitability. And now here it was, here _she_ was, like all the fear that had been building up since he’d arrived in Kirkwall had taken form and burst onto the surface.

No, not just since Kirkwall—this fear had started building long before that. The tension every time his secret slipped out to someone new, wondering if this was going to be the one that turned him in to the templars. The childhood full of memorizing escape routes and meeting points just in case; the emergency bag always packed, so he’d be ready if there wasn’t time to grab anything else; the need to always know exactly where the twins were at all times; knowing that if you ran from the templars they just used that as justification to cut you down, call you maleficar, call it necessary; knowing that his father would still want him to run.

This moment had been a sword hanging over his head his whole life. Coming to Kirkwall just gave him Meredith, a name and a face to put to the fear.

But now that she was actually here in front of him, there was a strange kind of relief in it. And terror, yes, terror of whatever came next—but it was out of his hands now. His secret was out, and it couldn’t be taken back. No more hiding, no more running, no more avoiding this moment—it was here. Fate sliding into place.

* * *

Three years later, watching the chantry fall, he was feeling that same sense of inevitability, of witnessing a moment in time that had been set down in stone, with no way to avoid it anymore. The horror of it and the terror of what came next, all mixed up with this bizarre sense of relief—all the fear that had been held back for far too long, finally bursting out into the open.

And after everything else was said, after all the questions and speeches and declarations, Anders still wouldn’t look at him. So Hawke wrapped his arms around him from behind, his words partially muffled by the fabric and feathers of Anders’ coat as he said, “I’m so sorry you had to do that.”

He felt Anders let out a long, shuddering exhale, as if he’d been holding that breath for months now. And Hawke loosened his grip just enough to look to where Merrill and Varric and all the others were standing, waiting for them. “We won’t let this go to waste.”


End file.
